KASUR: The Kasur District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital has become a test case for the Punjab government. The chief minister has visited it twice in the last few months, followed by visits by ministers and secretaries. The visits by the chief minister devoured one executive district officer of health, three medical superintendents, a deputy medical superintendent and a senior medical officer for inefficiency charges.

Did the vigilance by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his team has brought about any change in the hospital?

An employ requesting anonymity said the paramedics staff would advise the patients visiting or discharged from the hospital to visit some private health facility for a better treatment. An array of private clinics and hospitals has been established around the hospital, mostly run by public doctors.

Back in the DHQ hospital, a patient died at emergency ward last week and the heirs alleged the patient had been left unattended to die. They ransacked the ward and staged a protest demonstration.

Traffic police official Muhammad Asghar was admitted to hospital for the treatment of heatstroke and his colleagues said they had to call their senior officers when doctors failed to attend him for an hour. Another patient, Asifa (20), was referred to Lahore for her respiratory complication. Her mother Bushra Bibi said she took her to a local clinic and was fine just after one dose. Last week, the one-year-old daughter of Khalil Ahmed died at the children’s ward. He alleges no doctor was on duty on that fateful day.

This correspondent spoke to several doctors of the hospital who have been running their private clinics for years.

They say the private practice is legal and that they pay full attention to their public hospital’s job.

Health EDO Health Dr Masood Tariq said that like India private practice by government doctors should be banned but after increasing their salary. Dr Ziaul Rehman, additional medical superintendent, said public hospitals were already overburdened, which forced the people to go to private health facilities. One Muhammad Nawaz says he brought his wife to the hospital and it took him half an hour to reach the doctor even though she was unconscious. He said the hospital was in a mess from the gate to the ward. He said the gate leading to the emergency ward remains closed to oblige the parking stand contractor.

He said the visits of the chief minister had failed to get a biomedical engineer for the hospital and patients had to get the work done from private clinics. Hospital’s equipment was out of order, one insider revealed.

According to advocate Ghulam Ahmed Ansari, frequent reshuffle in hospitals would help discourage monopoly of doctors.

Advocate Muhammad Zarif says the emergency ward refers 80 per cent of the patients to Lahore hospitals, and that shows the hospital is ill-equipped to save lives. Later, those denied treatment go to private hospitals in Kasur, he claims.District Coordination Officer Amara Khan says she has received complaints regarding the rude attitude of doctors and lack of proper clinical care to patients. She said that there should be strict government policy regarding establishing hospitals by the government doctors that will strengthen the district government.

She said efforts were under way to improve the hospital but it was not possible without the cooperation of doctors.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2016